New Music Reviews

theartsdesk in Pula: Dubstep's Croatian conference

joe Muggs Thursday, 13 September 2012

It's a truism in dance music culture that “everyone's a DJ nowadays”. It's generally meant in a flip, pejorative sense – suggesting that cheap technology means every man Jack and his dog can put a sequence of records together and the role is somehow devalued.

Larry Graham & Graham Central Station, Clapham Grand

Garth Cartwright Thursday, 13 September 2012

At 66 Larry Graham remains a remarkably supple, handsome man. The huge afro that once towered over him is long gone but the ability to pluck and thump the funkiest rhythms on earth from his white bass remains unmatched. Graham made his name as original bassist/bass vocalist in Sly & The Family Stone, the Bay Area band that proved such a potent force in popular music 1968-1973.

The Killers, Roundhouse

Russ Coffey Wednesday, 12 September 2012

The moment everyone will remember came exactly an hour in: Brandon Flowers was singing “All These Things That I've Done” with the conviction of a man at confession. Behind him a video screen showed a loner carrying a long wooden sign on his shoulder like a cross. In the desert in front of him scantily dressed women stood by a grave. Suddenly there was an explosion above us all. Red and silver glitter thunderbolts rained down.

theartsdesk at Bestival 2012: Wild Times Across the Water

Caspar Gomez Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Friday 7^th September

theartsdesk at the Berlin Festival and Music Week

Kieron Tyler Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter who you are. You might be a charismatic performer, or the most energetic band in the world. But some settings can’t be outperformed. Holding Berlin Festival at the city’s astonishing out-of-commission Tempelhof airport sets a challenge that’s almost impossible to rise to. Although it began working in the late 1920s, the surviving buildings were completed in 1941 and form a single block over a kilometre long, wrapped around an open quadrangle.

Lady Gaga, Twickenham Stadium

Josh Spero Sunday, 09 September 2012

After Lady Gaga's concert at Twickenham last night, I asked some of the Little Monsters scurrying back to the station the name of the last song she had sung. The song she sang right after declaring that she had to bring the evening to an early end. The song she sang an hour after screaming that she would "sing her pussy off" and no one could stop her. Someone stopped her and no one could name it. (See Update in the penultimate paragraph.)

Comment

Reissue CDs Weekly: Lee "Scratch" Perry, Cud, Taj Mahal, David Cassidy

theartsdesk Sunday, 09 September 2012

Lee “Scratch” Perry and Friends: Disco Devil - The Jamaican Discomixes

Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard, The Haunt, Brighton

Thomas H Green Friday, 07 September 2012

Astonishment is the emotion that creeps up most often when watching 36-year-old New York singer-songwriter Jeffrey Lewis. The term singer-songwriter does him an injustice, in fact, for these days it summons notions of strummed predictability, opaquely emotive lyrics and vulnerable falsetto-flecked whining, whereas he’s a whole different ball game. Take his history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Lee Hazlewood, T-Coy, Laibach, Boppin’ by the Bayou

theartsdesk Sunday, 02 September 2012

Lee Hazlewood: A House Safe for Tigers

Graham Rickson

Grandaddy, O2 ABC, Glasgow

Lisa-Marie Ferla Friday, 31 August 2012

Jason Lytle has a “fervent appreciation”, he says, “for bands that don’t exist anymore”. It’s why he’s playing the cover of “Here”, by Pavement, that has become a staple of his band Grandaddy’s live sets on this open-ended reunion tour, although it doesn’t explain why the time is right for a Grandaddy reunion in the first place.